Bell 47 H-1

Undercarriage

The first scale feature to tackle was the undercarriage. Aluminium tubes have been used to keep the weight to a minimum; these have an outside diameter of 6mm and were purchased from the local hardware store. To bend the tubes a jig was made so that symmetrical struts of the correct profile could be easily reproduced. This jig was used to bend the cross braces and the skids.

A centre line was marked on the tube that was then placed in the jig and clamped into position.

The tube was heated with a hot air gun to slightly soften the metal in preparation for bending around the predefined shape.

The brace on the left-hand side was to ensure that both bends were made in the same plane.

The two cross struts are not the same on this model; the front strut was lower than the back one and each is cut accordingly.

The subtle difference between the front and back cross struts can be seen here.

The jig was also used to fabricate the skids.

The undercarriage set for the Century Bell 47 was used to donate the plastic components. This picture shows the contents of the complete undercarriage set; most of which was discarded.

The vertical struts were trimmed so that the cross struts could be joined to the skids. This is a ‘before’ and ‘after’ shot. The peg will slide inside the cross strut and is deliberately left rough to enable the epoxy to form a strong bond.

At this stage all the components are now ready to make one undercarriage set.

Another jig was built to ensure that the skids are parallel and the cross struts were assembled with the correct height and rake; all Bell 47’s without floats seem to have cross struts that lean forward.

Use of the jig ensured that the undercarriage faithfully reproduced the dimensions of the full-size.

Clamps are used to hold the items in place while the slow curing epoxy sets.

This picture clearly shows the completed assembly.

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